Data Dump

Ever want to post a story but at the same time not want to post it? This is one of those stories that I'm not going to finish, but I feel compelled to write it anyway. When writing it, I felt that I was writing a "faux-Daria" story, where Person A and Person B could be substituted for Daria and ***** and it would make no difference in the story whatsoever. Only after some writing are the actual characters beginning to make their personalities known.

So I'll just post the first part of it here. Maybe other parts, just to get it out of my system.

P. S. TAG, Jane Lane has not forgotten about her Autobiography. When the muse strikes, she'll write again.

(* * *)

“Daria Morgendorffer003, Please step to the red line.”

The robot extended a mechanical hand and pointed to the appropriate stripe. Daria stepped forward as she was told. For once, she was glad to follow the orders of these machines. She wanted as far out of here as possible.

“Daria Morgendorffer003,” said the prison robot, “your record of behavior at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women has been reviewed. During your three years of incarceration, you have met the minimum behavior standards of the state of Maryland and you are to be automatically paroled to the general population. CommunityNet access is to be restricted for a further three years, but access may be reviewed on a monthly basis. You will be informed of the review results.

“Do you agree to this parole? Please answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”

“Yes.” Yes, oh God, yes!

“Daria Morgendorffer003, you are now unemployed. Do you have other means of employment?”

Daria suspected her job as a copywriter had now disappeared. “No,” she said.

“Do you have guest status with any resident?”

What this meant was, “was there any one she could sponge off?” Daria’s winning personality had not won her many friends. Both of her parents were dead. Quinn had died of a heart attack while Daria was in prison. Jane had fled the country years ago, and Daria doubted that she’d be granted a visa. Besides, where was Jane?

“No,” she was forced to answer. She didn’t like where this was going.

“Do you have means of support unknown to me?”

Daria resented the machine’s use of the word “me”. The machine was not sentient. It was simply a social convention the machines used. Daria was tempted to lie, but a lie would be found out very quickly, and Daria did not want to return to prison.

“No.”

“In accordance with ordinance 605.12b of the Federal Homeless Relief Act, you have been assigned room 030397 in building 1, resident quant A. This assignment provides you with suitable housing and nourishment to sustain your life. Please board the bus.”

(* * *)

Daria rode the windowless bus with other parolees. Daria had sworn to herself that when she got out of prison, she would grab the nearest person around the neck and begin talking up a storm. Instead, she found herself lost in thought, like the others. The trip to “Building 1, Resident Quant A” was entirely silent.

She could feel the wheels noiselessly move beneath her. She was now moving, undoubtedly moving past the outside shock zone. Daria touched her neck, rubbing the back, still not used to the removal of the “behavioral collar” that turned the prisoners into nothing more than dogs. Only the crazy ones needed more than one or two shocks to toe the line.

There was the temptation to throw open the doors and begin running for cover. However, so much had changed in Daria’s short life and she knew nothing of the outside world. What was different? For all Daria knew, there were murderous Tripods or X-1 Terminators posted at every corner. Escape was tempting, but she needed the solid ground of a new routine before she could get back in gear.

After many minutes of thinking, the machine stopped. The bus doors opened automatically.

“Welcome to Building 1, Resident Quant A,” said the soft humanlike voice from inside the van, free of inflection. “Please follow the indicated signs. If you have trouble finding your way, please ask one of the maintenance robots for help.”

“I’ll pass on that.” Everyone turned. Those were the only words spoken by any of the prisoners during the entire trip.

(* * *)

The industrial strength elevator opened out into the hallway. A maintenance robot was busy cleaning the brown, bleak-looking floors to a fine polish. For public housing, it looks rather good.

Daria looked at the doors. There it was. 030397. Cubicle Sweet Cubicle.

Daria didn’t want to ask the Friendly Robot how to get in. The problem with Friendly Robots, however, was that they were Friendly. The robot would undoubtedly notice Daria standing there looking like a dumb ass and offer help, and that meant having a conversation with a dumb hunk of metal.

So Daria knocked on the door. She heard a cry “Just a second!”

A roommate. Well, this ought to be interesting.

The door clicked open. A brunette woman wearing a simple scarf saw Daria and immediately embraced her.

“Daria! Daria!” she cried. “It’s so good, so good to see you again.”

Daria just stood there, stiff as a board. Oddly repulsed by the human contact. Confused by the fact that this total stranger claimed to know her. What kind of trick is this?

“I…guess,” offered Daria. “And you are?”

The woman was taken aback. “Don’t you recognize me? It’s me! It’s Sandi Griffin!”

Of course, thought Daria. There’s no way to forget that baritone.

“Come in, come in!”

Daris stepped into the room. The room was small. And by small, the words “hall closet small” came to mind. The room measured eight feet by ten feet. The entire contents of the room consisted of a bunk bed, a television set, a CommunityNet keyboard…and nothing else.

“Holy Christ. This is just like my old prison room,” said Daria.

Sandi looked tentatively at Daria. “Prison?” she meekly inquired.

(* * *)

As soon as Sandi was convinced that Daria hadn’t murdered anyone – although Daria was tempted to leave her with the impression – she explained things.

“They’ve expanded each of the little apartments here. Just last month they put in bunk beds and told us that they were going to have us double up! And they put up a list of people who would be coming, and I recognized your name, and I saw your name! And I thought, it would be sooooo good to have Daria Morgendorffer here! Besides,” said Sandi, “they would have put someone else here. At least I had a choice. So…how’s Quinn?”

“Quinn is dead.”

Sandi looked poleaxed. She sat down on the lower bunk of the ridiculously small room. “How?”

“Fatal cardiac arrest. The robots tried to save her, but they didn’t get there in time. She inherited dad’s bad ticker.” As Daria looked at Sandi’s ashen face, she offered, “I was surprised. I’m glad Mom and Dad weren’t alive. It would have broken their hearts.”

“Any children?” asked Sandi.

“No. Quinn…with a man? What kind of man would want to scrape and bow that much? I suspect that the line of the Morgendorffers ends…right here.”

“I lost track of Quinn,” muttered Sandi. “My God. I’m so sorry.”

“So,” said Daria, desperate for a change of subject. “Are you out of prison?”

“Me? Prison? Oh God, no! I was the Assistant Producer of the news over at KSBC! We had a top running news show, #2 in the area! I had just the most wonderful little condo, that overlooked the forest. There was a small wading pool in the backyard and I had real koy fish in it. And I had a little pug dog…Flopsy. Oh, you would have loved it, Daria!”

Sandi went on…for at least a half hour…about her former home. Daria examined every word of the conversation carefully for some sort of factual information of value, some News She Could Use. After a half hour of Sandi’s prattling, she concluded that Sandi Griffin was one of the many reasons she had stopped watching the news before her imprisonment.

Daria interrupted her. “So if you have such a wonderful house, why are you here?”

Sandi sighed. “ProcTec 1.5.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a robot which is ‘designed for the production and facilitation of multimedia’. They shaved my job down to monkey parts.”

‘Monkey parts’. It was a phrase pregnant in meaning. Several jobs had fallen victim to the Monkey Parts Syndrome. Professions had been segmented into a series of steps. First the simple once, like burger flipping and shelf stacking. Then, the complex ones. Robots stepped in to perform some of the steps, and then in the case of Sandi Griffin, all of them. This left Sandi Griffin jobless. Some robot was now producing the news at KSBC, completely fluent in the many intricacies and problems of the production of a modern news show.

Daria learned that Sandi tried desperately to look for work, but ProcTec 1.5 was sweeping through newsrooms across the country. Sandi’s expensive tastes left her little money to fall back on. Within a year, she had burned through every bit of savings she had. The very first time a bill bounced, a robot came to her door, pronounced her as one of the terminally unemployable, and pleasantly escorted her to room 030397.

“Can you imagine it?” said Sandi, still in some kind of shock. “But it’s nice here! The people are nice. Everyone is nice. Well, they did have to put bunk beds in. But all of the hallways are roomy and the food is good. It’s not crowded or anything.”

“I’m sure the food is good.” Daria remembered the prison food. It was good too. “So…they gave us a TV?”

“Definitely. Do you watch Pleasure Island?”

“No. No TV,” said Daria. “We were left to dwell on our own wickedness.”

“So…what did you do before…prison?”

Daria was tempted to lie. Instead, she let the truth slip out. “I was a copy writer. I wrote advertising copy for automobiles and high end homes. If you make over $50 million a year, you’ve probably seen my work.”

“I’ve never seen a robot write!” giggled Sandi.

“Thank God,” answered Daria. She was sure that they were teaching one to write right now, ready to move copy writing to the list of obsolete professions.

“So how did you end up in prison?”

“Civil Disobediance. I was imprisoned for violating Patriot Act III.”

(* * *)

Daria smirked, leaving Sandi hanging as to what bomb-throwing act put Daria in the shock collar. Actually, it was a simple post on NewYorkList.

Looking for those willing to risk all to gain all. It’s time to reassert our rights and time to demand a more equal share of the wealth. Please contact me with your suggestions.

Within 15 minutes, there was a police bot at her high rise apartment. Daria Morgendorrfer was arrested for the violation of Patriot Act III, “inciting riot or protest against a duly lawfully elected government.” According to the (still) human judges, the mere posting of such a message on a public messageboard was a felony act. Her username was quickly matched with a living name and address in a matter of seconds.

With the simple messageboard post the evidence against her, the jury deliberated a grand total of five minutes. The message didn’t specifically incite protest against the government of the United States, but it was enough for the jury. She officially became Daria Morgendorffer, felon and prisoner and was sent to Maryland Correctional where she was introduced to the joys of the shock collar.

She hated to tell Sandi that her room in prison was very much like Sandi’s present room, except for no television. Daria would ask for a book (usually 19th century Russian literature), the bot would duly bring it and then demand its return at lights out. The food was the same as the food Sandi had, lovingly prepared by robots.

The only difference was at Maryland Correctional, none of the prisoners ate together. They sat at cubicles, with walls up, obscuring any sort of conversation. Prisoners trying to whisper would be reminded, “No talking please” by one of the prison bots. Punishments could range from the denial of dessert, to solitary confinement (what was the difference?) to the use of the shock collar or mind-numbing pharmaceuticals.

There wasn’t even a line to go to lunch, no chance for human contact there. A voice somewhere in your cell would say, “Please depart for lunch” and the voices were so timed that there was no waiting line. Daria would walk to lunch sometimes alone, sometimes with someone in front of her walking but yards away from her.

She almost wished for the cruel bull dyke prison guards out of the 1980s movies. However, there were no such guards, not anymore. Monkey Parts. They had lost their jobs, too.

(* * *)

“So you had shock collars?”

“Yeah,” said Daria. “We were like dogs. We couldn’t leave the prison compounds. Or, we could try, but if we went so much as fifty feet out of the individual exercise yards, you’d hear, Warning. You are leaving a restricted area. Shock collars are in force.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Imagine your urethra being set on fire. Hell yes, it hurt. I don’t care how much willpower you have. When you’re hit by the collar, it’s like you’ve been given a visit by Satan’s enema. It only takes a few times.”

“Well, thank God we don’t have that here,” said Sandi.

“Really?” Daria was intrigued.

“Yes. I’ve gone so far as to see our new home away from home just a speck in the distance.”

“So why didn’t you go back to your old home? Or just get a job.”

“Oh, there was some dangerous rock blasting ahead. A robot stopped me and told me that there was some blasting ahead and I’d better turn back. So I went back.”

“Riggght. Tell me, Ms. Griffin,” Daria said. “Are you up for a walk?”

“Oh yes. Yes. Definitely.” Daria detected a note of unease in Sandi’s voice, but it was a pleasant unease. Despite their different upbringings and world views, both had come to the conclusion that they wanted to be as far away from Building 1, Resident Quant A, Room 030397 as humanly possible.

(* * *)

Sandi was as good as her word. The next morning, after the communal breakfast (Daria had to admit the ham and eggs were perfect), Daria and Sandi set out for a hike...a very long hike if Daria had anything to do with it.

“So, anyway, in the third episode Dylan was voted out of Pleasure Island. If he’d only met the athletic challenge, he could have stayed! Of course, Dylan doesn’t even come close to the record. The record is sixty-seven weeks, and he would have stayed longer if that bitch Heather hadn’t put together a Challenge Coalition….”

Daria had numbed herself to Sandi’s endless chattering. The confident Sandi of decades earlier seemed to have undergone a transformation, addicted to reality TV and home makeover shows. Sandi had taken on some of Stacy Rowe’s worst characteristics. (Or had they always been there, and merely latent?)

“So Daria, who are you voting for in the upcoming election? Nichols or Predimore?”

“I’ve never heard of either of them. Felon, you know. Can’t vote anyway.”

“It’s a pity,” said Sandi, looking backwards uneasily. “Predimore has some good ideas about the economy. He’s a Republican. I always suspected you were a Democrat in high school, Daria.”

“So what does Predimore’s platform say about keeping the jobless penned up in public housing?” Sandi had nothing to say about that.

“Okay,” said Daria. “What about Nichols?” Sandi searched her mind for a distinction on the issue, but couldn’t find one.

After some silence, Daria said, “And now you know why I haven’t voted in the last twenty years.”

“Daria, look!”

Something was walking towards them from the distance. It was orange, and had a vaguely humanoid shape. It did not seem to be in a hurry, but since the three of them were the only human sized-figures in the immediate area, the robot clearly only had one destination.

Daria looked behind her. Building 1, Resident Quant A was indeed a mere speck on the horizion.

“Daria, what’s wrong?”

“I’m just skeeved out by these things. I don’t want to make any sudden moves. I want both of us to slightly change direction. Let’s both go to the robot’s left. See if it follows.”

Daria and Sandi adjusted the angle of their path. Sure enough, the robot adjusted the angle of its path as well.

“There is no way,” Daria muttered. “God damn it. Let’s find out what the thing wants.”

“Should we walk over there?”

“Let it walk.” Daria and Sandi stood there while the robot patiently traversed the distance.

“Greetings,” said the robot.

“What do you want?” asked Daria icily.

“I’m sorry to tell you,” said the robot, “but there is a building construction zone several hundred yards away. I’m afraid you’ll have to turn back.”

“What if I don’t turn back?” said Daria.

“Then if you proceed further, I will have to subdue you. It would be irresponsible of me to let you come to harm.”

“Sandi,” said Daria. “Talk to this thing and let him know what we’re doing.”

Sandi began a perfectly rational, reasonable discussion with the robot.

Twenty seconds into the discussion, Daria bolted. She ran past the robot, all by herself.

“Please turn around,” said the robot, calmly, after Daria.

“PLEASE TURN AROUND.” The volume of the robot’s voice had changed but not its pleasant demeanor. Sandi watched Daria become smaller and smaller in the distance as she ran.

Abruptly, something emerged from the robot’s right shoulder and back, swinging into a resting position on what would have been the robot’s right collarbone. Sandi heard a

…….THWWWWWWWWWWWWWWIIIIPPPPP……..

sound. She watched in the distance as the running figure simply collapsed.

“What did you do?” shouted Sandi.

“I have immobilized your friend with a tranquilizer dart. It would have been irresponsible of me to let your friend come to harm. There are no worries. I shall monitor your friend’s health and bring her back to our infirmary, and then to your room for a swift recovery. Please turn back. Do not worry, I shall take care of everything.”

Sandi watched the robot gain speed, this time running at a speed that no human being could match on his best day. Instead of turning back, Sandi sat on the ground. She held her stomach. All of her old anxieties were coming back again.